I’m not homeless, just houseless. Not the same thing, right? Don’t worry about me, I’m okay.

Fern is reassuring Mackenzie, a girl she used to tutor, during a brief encounter at a local superstore toward the beginning of the film. The conversation more broadly illuminates Fern’s worldview of home as being more than a physical building and introduces the motif of home that carries through Nomadland. This also gives a window into how Fern handles what is most likely a common misconception regarding van life. Her response reveals her confidence in the choice she has made to live out of her van while also encouraging the viewer to broaden their definition of home. The rest of the film then seeks to show how home is much more about a sense of sanctuary and community, exemplified through the way Fern personalizes her van as she would a traditional home and finds friendship in Linda May, Swankie, Dave, and the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous. When Fern returns to her old house in Empire, it’s no longer her home even though the four walls still exist: a clear delineation between “house” and “home.”  

If society was throwing us away and sending us, the workhorse, out to pasture, we workhorses had to gather together and take care of each other. And that’s what this is all about…

Bob Wells explains why the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous (RTR), a sort of nomadic support group, exists to Fern and the rest of the group members as they gather around a campfire. This happens not long after Fern first joins the RTR gathering in Arizona at Linda May’s suggestion. Bob’s analogy comparing America’s senior citizens to the workhorse driven out to pasture gives voice to a heartbreaking crisis an aging population faces. With little financial support from Social Security, the elderly are forced to deny retirement even after many have worked their entire lives with little to show for themselves. RTR then exists in response to this crisis as a place for Americans at retirement age to help each other as they lead an alternate lifestyle as so-called “rubber tramps” living out of their vans. Notably, Bob Wells is an actual person playing himself in the film, and the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous is a real collective. This is a prime example of how Nomadland blends documentary realism with narrative fiction. 

We were right on the edge of town. And our backyard looks out at this huge open space. It was just desert, desert, desert, all the way to the mountains. There was nothin’ in our way.”

Fern describes her old house in Empire during a reflective moment with Dave’s daughter-in-law. Fern recalls the view of the desert and the mountains from the back window of the house she shared with her late husband Bo and reveals her attachment to the place. For the viewer, it’s understandable why it was hard for Fern to leave even after the industry in the town collapsed. Her house had significant sentimental value and connected her to Bo. Furthermore, the reference to the desert is significant. While the desert often holds a negative connotation as being a dry and dead wasteland, for Fern it is actually quite the opposite: a place of freedom and possibility. Notably, Fern revisits her old house with the view she treasured so much, and the viewer finally gets to see what she had only described. It’s breathtaking. In a moment of symbolic significance, Fern walks out the back door of her old house one last time into the open desert as she finally lets go and embraces the beauty of the open space, free from the ties to her past.  

It’s like my dad used to say, “What’s remembered lives.” I maybe spent too much of my life just remembering, Bob. You know what I mean?

Fern makes this confession one-on-one to Bob Wells while at her second Rubber Tramp Rendezvous the following year. This is a significant moment of self-realization for Fern as she verbally processes her struggle and marks a turning point in her character development. In referencing her father, Fern reveals a worldview she internalized as she made every effort to keep her late husband alive in her memory. But in this moment, she starts to realize how this could be an unhealthy practice and detrimental to her flourishing. Death serves as a sober reminder of life’s brevity, and in the wake of Swankie’s death, one can sense the regret in Fern’s words. This change of heart propels Fern to make the necessary changes in her own life, namely, getting rid of her storage unit, to distance herself from her past and make the most of the life she has left. 

One of the things I love most about this life is that there’s no final goodbye. You know I’ve met hundreds of people out here and I don’t ever say a final goodbye. I always just say, "I’ll see you down the road." And I do.

Bob Wells makes this profound statement to Fern after revealing that his son died by suicide. In this tender moment at Fern’s second Rubber Tramp Rendezvous, he empathizes with Fern’s grief over her husband and shares what he has come to believe: death isn’t final. For Bob, the transience of nomadic life parallels life itself. He encourages Fern that she will see her husband again just like he will see his son again. He puts this worldview into practice when he says, “See you down the road,” during Swankie’s memorial campfire gathering. Transience permeates Nomadland as Fern says goodbye to friends only for them to later re-appear at unexpected times. By the time this conversation between Bob and Fern happens on-screen, it’s not a stretch to understand his worldview because it has already happened in real time: people come and go, but it doesn't mean they are gone forever. Ultimately, Bob’s words of comfort give Fern the encouragement she needs to hear after years of struggle with grief.  

Take a Study Break